Texas Basketball: Second-Half Surge Propels Bears to Win
AUSTIN - Baylor (22-1, 11-0) went on a 13-0 run midway through the second half and held off a late Texas (14-10, 4-7) charge to pick up a 52-45 win on Big Monday.
"That was the difference in the game," Texas head coach Shaka Smart said. "They got a couple of threes during that stretch where they got loose."
"We were blessed to get in transition a little bit and make a couple more plays (than they did) down the stretch)," Baylor head coach Scott Drew said.
The Bears ran out to a 14-5 lead early on in the first half, but Texas closed the gap to just two thanks to a 3-pointer from Matt Coleman and back-to-back layups from Courtney Ramey.
Baylor closed out the half strong, upping the lead back to six thanks to a run capped by a Jared Butler layup to make it 22-16 at halftime.
Texas threatened a couple of times in the second half once Jericho Sims turnaround shot and a Coleman layup that made it 22-20. Then again later when Ramey's layup and Sims' jumper made it 29-27 with 13:09 to go in the game, but the No. 1 team in the country scored put up the next 13 to make it 42-27.
"When we share the ball, we are at our best and during that time (the 13-0 run), we shared the ball better than we did in the first (half) for sure," Drew said.
Texas had one more run left in it, cutting the lead to 51-45 with 45 seconds to go, but couldn't hit a shot down the stretch to make things interesting and was eventually forced to foul.
"I feel like we missed a lot of good shots," Ramey said.
Neither team shot well on the night with the Longhorns finishing at just 30.5 percent from the floor (17.6 percent from 3-point range) and the Bears shooting 34 percent.
Baylor's MaCio Teague led the team in scoring with 11 points. Devonte Bandoo was the only other Bear in double digits with 10.
Coleman led the team in scoring with 11 points. Jones scored 10 and Sims had nine points to go with 14 total rebounds for Texas.
The victory marks the 21st straight for the Bears, who are looking to lock up the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament.
Texas fell for the third-straight game, falling to three games below .500 in conference play with just eight contests remaining.